who are willing to fight under the Union Jack, have gone up
into Canada for training and are this very minute facing the gray
coats of the German enemy in northern France."

"But, Pen," she protested, "this is such a horrible war. The soldiers
live in the muddiest, foulest kinds of trenches. They kill each other
with gases and blazing oil. They slaughter each other by thousands
with guns that go by machinery. It's simply terrible!"

"I know, mother. It's modern warfare. It's up to date. It's no pink
tea as some one has said. But the more awful it is the sooner it'll be
over, and the more credit there'll be to us who fight in it."

"And you'll be so far away."

She looked up at him, pale-faced, with appealing eyes. He knew how
uncontrollably she shrank from the thought of losing him in this wild
vortex of savagery. He patted her cheek tenderly.

"But you'll be a good patriot," he said, "and let me go. It's my duty
to fight, and it's your duty to let me fight. There isn't any doubt
about that. Besides, this isn't really France's war nor England's war
any more than it is our war, or any more than it is the war of any
country that wants to maintain the ideals of modern civilization. I
shall be serving my country almost the same as though I were fighting
under the Stars and Stripes. And I'll be answering in the only way
it's possible for me to answer, those people who have been charging me
with disloyalty to the flag. Oh, I must show you what Grandfather
Butler says. He made a speech yesterday at the flag-raising at
Chestnut Valley, and it's all in the Lowbridge _Citizen_ this morning.
Listen! Here's the way he winds up."

He drew a newspaper from his pocket and read:

"'So, fellow citizens, let me predict that before this great war
shall come to an end the Stars and Stripes will wave over every
battlefield in Europe. Sooner or later we must enter the conflict; and
the sooner the better. For it's our war. It's the war of every country
that loves liberty and justice. Up to this moment the Allies have been
fighting for the freedom of the world, your freedom and mine, my
friends, as well as their own. It is high time the Government at
Washington, impelled by the patriotic ardor of our thinking citizens,
declared the enemies of England and France to be our enemies, and
joined hands with those heroic countries to stamp out forever the
teutonic menace to liberty and civilization. In the meantime I say to
the red-blooded y